June 25, 2015

Thank God For Marketing Experts

Here at the Ketel One Conference Centerof The Ad Contrarian Worldwide Headquarters, we have finally realized that there are two kinds of marketing and advertising people in the world.

There are Experts, and there are Schmucks Like Us (SLUs).

The Experts are much more important than SLUs because Experts are not only smarter than us, they're smarter than the facts.

You see, we SLUs see a fact and we assume it means something. But the Experts see a fact and they know it means exactly the opposite.

Here's an example.

Nielsen just released its Total Audience Report for the first quarter of 2015. It shows that 96% of video viewing in the US is done on a television and 4% is done on a PC.

To Schmucks Like Us this might suggest that television is kicking the living shit out of PC viewing.

But not to Experts. Experts and their Expert friends don't need to read reports. They go to conferences and write books and articles and they explain to each other -- and lecture to us -- that TV is dead. They're smarter than the facts.

Here's another example:

Schmucks Like Us would look at this chart and assume that because radio reaches a higher percent of Americans every week than any other medium, it must be pretty popular. Ha! Thank goodness we have experts to explain to us that radio, too, is dead.

I think it's time that Schmucks Like Us stop reading reports and relying on facts. Not if we ever expect to become experts.

Without detracting from the overall point - would be better to see breakdown by program access.rather than device. Eg this doesn't account for online video access (YT, Netflix et Al) via tv vs broadcast etc. Can't see link to original research on my mobile so not certain of categorisation.

You wrote: "Yeah, if you divide a channel by 3, it doesn't look as good anymore. Shocking."

If you're referring to the Weekly Reach (% of Population) chart, your comment is off base. Affirm this by adding up the 3 smartphone, pc, tablet). The total is somewhere around 150%. That doesn't work for me, but feel free to use this number in your next Expert presentation. :)

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